The Stonebreakers

Gustave Courbet's painting, The Stonebreakers was considered offensive to the bourgeoisie for several reasons. Some of reasons that I can think of are a mix between political and technical things. When looking at Stonebreakers you can see that Courbet used rough paint strokes in the painting, I mostly see these strokes in the background, on the various rocks and objects scattered about. I don't really see the rough brush strokes on the figures though. They seem rather clean and realistic looking. Though I can still see why the bourgeoisie would be upset at the rough brush strokes here and there because of how academic paintings were devoid of noticeable brush strokes.

Another thing to point out would be the size of the figures and how far into the foreground they are. Because of how big the figures are there is very little landscape in the background and Courbet isn't portraying a lot of depth/space in this painting. Though, I personally think that despite the limited background in the painting Courbet was able to portray a good deal of space and depth within the painting. The size of the 2 people in the painting also upset the bourgeoisie because, in the past lower class people were displayed in much smaller sizes, where the landscapes took up most of the paintings.

The subject matter was also offensive to the bourgeoisie because it was of modern, lower class, stonebreakers, who the bourgeoisie thought were not important enough to paint a picture of. The two stonebreakers that you see in the painting are working away by a road. The older man is kneeling down and bending over some rocks with a hammer, while a younger man is trying to carry a very heavy basket of broken stones. Both of these figures are in torn clothing, and you can tell that they are working very hard and struggling with what they are doing.

The figures in Courbet's painting are also not turned to look at the viewer, and even have their faces covered in shadow, which disturbed and upset the bourgeoisie because of the recent unrest of the working class, and because Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto had been published a year earlier. Not being able to see their faces reminded them of the countless working class rising up against them. And not being able to tell what the figures were thinking, was very disturbing and frightening to the higher class bourgeoisie. (It was also considered an untraditional way of portraying people in paintings. There was supposed to be some sort of connection in the painting to the viewer.)

The size of the painting also upset the bourgeoisie because, in the past larger paintings were reserved for historical events with great importance. And since Stonebreakers is showing an untraditional, lowly, subject matter, of the working class, the bourgeoisie considered it offensive towards traditional and historical art.